Meanwhile, Dad

THE PARENTS - Part 6/8 – Meanwhile, Dad.

Jay reached office at 2:15PM and was late for an important meeting. As he entered the meeting room and apologised for being late, the other attendees made bad faces as if they had smelt rotten fish. Within five minutes, both the seats adjacent to him were empty. They had moved on to other chairs far away from him.

After the meeting ended, Jay’s Boss, Dean, a prominent sexagenarian engineer and a distinguished and widely travelled Scotsman, who had just found home in Bali with his newest twenty three year old Indonesian wife, summoned him. Jay entered his boss’s cabin and they greeted each other. As Jay sat down on the discussion table, his boss locked the door, and for a moment they kept looking at each other and smiling. His boss then hesitantly broke ice and started talking.

He asked Jay how life was treating him, and Jay responded by saying “Great!”

After a brief discussion on the routine works, the Boss asked Jay if he had sensed some stench around him, to which Jay responded by saying “Well it must be the smell of those hundred day old eggs and half cooked fish that these Asian girls bring to office” He paused for a second and then continued “Ahh, Boss, today these girls celebrated some event and I suspect they got that Durian fruit. It smells like dry shit, I must say”

“No Jay, it’s not the smell of Asian food” his Boss intervened.

“Oh Boss! I know….. it must be the gamey smell of that New Zealand Mutton that these Arabs like to have. It’s bad. Today, Areef had got mutton Kebabs from the Al Boostah Restaurant. And I must say, when he farted it smelt awful” Jay replied

Dean let out a laugh and clarified “No Jay, it’s not the smell of anyone’s food or even farting” to which Jay replied “Then, what it could be Boss? I think we have to investigate further. Today morning as I started my station, the Office Boy sprayed in room freshener. I guess the smell must be coming from some cube adjacent to mine or maybe from the false ceiling. Maybe some rat or lizard is dead up there. Let me check it out through the facilities guy. I’ll let you know”

Jay’s Boss looked on thinking if this fellow was really so dumb or was he acting just smart and avoiding the subject, when Jay continued “Or, maybe is it that sewage truck pumping out sewage or is it some pipe leaking….. Ahh, many possibilities”

Jay’s Boss had enough of it. He interjected with an intention to cut short the speculations “Jay, it’s your body odour. I think you have to change your soap”

Jay, who was taken by shock, argued “My soap? Boss, I bathe with OK soap, which is prominent brand in India. And they say in Hindi ‘Jo Ok saabun se nahaye, kamal sa khil jaaye (Bathe using OK soap, you’ll blossom like a lotus)’ There’s no way that my soap smells bad. It has a nice lotus scent”

Jay’s Boss replied “O yes! When I was young, I have worked in India, in a place called Munger, in Bihar, we built a bridge across the Ganges and this soap was quite popular amongst the labourers. But son, it’s not good for this place. For the Middle Eastern climates you require something stronger and masculine, and maybe in your case, even a strong deodorant or antiperspirant”

Jay continued listening with a dumbfound look as his Boss spoke “Back home we have brands like Colliers and Man Go, which are pretty strong and good for those who slog it out in the sun, but these are not available here. You know Jay, I still remember the day when I interviewed you. And you’d said that you were a site man. And you had used an Indian word for that…ahhhh…. What was it? Yes ‘pucca’! Yes, you’d said that you were a ‘pucca’ site man and that you believed that all the work and action took place at the site, and said that you never really fancied office work, and believed that paper work was actually a waste of time”

Jay continued listening with that same dumbfound look as his Boss talked “You know Jay, few days back, someone from the HR came in and asked me to talk to you. She felt that you always reported late to work and that you usually took extended lunch breaks. But I always had firm faith and belief in you and I must say I had just got a feedback from our clients, which said that they were more than happy with your work, so it was hard to believe that you were a slacker. I immediately called for your Time Sheets and proved to her that you were in, always well before seven. These HR people are just silly goose heads. They never go to the site so they never know how people are slogging out there. Now they know that you always come on time and that your first priority is a site visit, which you have been dedicatedly and religiously performing for the first couple of hours each day. You are good Jay, but you know too much of visiting site and exposing yourself to this hot and humid climate can leave you perspiring and smelly. That’s why you need a good deodorant or antiperspirant to cover it up”

Jay’s face turned pale and dull. His heart was beating rapidly and his blood pressure was rising. He slumped in the chair and in a broken tone; he muttered “Okay Boss, I’ll do something” and got up to leave.

His Boss stood up, shook Jay’s hand and said “You are doing great Jay. Well, that’s on the work front, but you have to keep in mind that a little bit of grooming helps. You are Delcroft’s face for the Client and the many contractors’ who work on this project and I hope you understand and take my advice constructively. Keep up the good work Jay.”  Delcroft is the company where Jay worked as a Construction Superintendent.

Jay got up and walked to his cube. He was tense and feeling sick.

Once at his cube, he raised his arm and smelled his right armpit and he got the biggest blow of his life so far. The feeling was analogous to someone unloading a bucketful of liquid ammonia right on his face. In the jiffy that followed, he tripped on his toe and fell down hitting his elbow. As he fell down, his colleagues from the adjacent cubes rushed in. Areef helped him to get up and posited him on his chair. He even offered to call the ambulance or drop him back home, if Jay wanted, while his Asian peer, whom he despised because she ate stinky half cooked fish, got him water, rubbed his palms and made him a nice cup of green tea. He was ashamed and disgusted of himself.

After his peers left his cube, he buried his head in had hands and sank into himself as realization dawned. He was feeling low and wanted to kill himself, for cheating his employer, which had built so much faith on him and his colleagues about whom he had harboured negative feelings. He sat there for a long time still, not realizing that his phone was ringing. After some ten odd rings, Areef came in from the next cube and tapped him saying “Ey Zay, yarr bone ring ring, Habibi you okey? Any brroblem? Shore? (Hey Jay, your phone’s ringing. Are you okay mate? Are you sure?)”

Jay removed his head from his hand, looked at Areef and lifted the phone.  It read ‘Home Calling’. He smiled at Areef and gave him a thumb’s up sign indicating that “All was well”. Areef left, and Jay picked the call. It was his son Kay and this is how their conversation went about:

Kay asked “How are you Pappa? Are you busy?”

He replied “I am okay son”

Kay continued “Okay Pappa. You know today Amma made a new cookie jar and I helped her”.

He replied “Okay, Good”

Then Kay asked “I am a good boy no Pappa?”

“Yes you are” Jay replied in a tired voice

In his usual innocent style, Kay asked “Did you buyed the Colouring Puzzle?” to which Jay let out a smile and said “It is not buyed Kay. We say bring, buy or brought. There is no word buyed”

Correcting himself, Kay then asked “Ok Pappa. Did you buy it?”

“No I didn’t. I shall do that on my way back from the office” said Jay.

“Okay Good Pappa. You are my hero. I know you can save the day like Ben10”

That brought a little cheer onto Jay’s tired eyes and he smiled. He was recovering and replied “Thank you Kay”

Kay then enquired, “Okay Pappa, what time will you come home?”

“I’ll be there before seven” replied Jay

“What is the time now, Pappa?” his son enquired, to which he replied “I think it is around half past four”

Finally Kay instructed “Okay Pappa. Don’t forget to bring the Puzzle, Okay”

“Okay Kay I will not” Jay confirmed

“Thank you Pappa. You are a Super Hero. You are strong like Hulk and no one can ever kill you. You can do the Hulk smash and save the day” said Kay, which infused more life into his dad.

“Thank you Kay” he said and disconnected the phone with a big happy smile on his face.